"The man best known as Sidney George Reilly was one of the most enigmatic figures of the twentieth century. He spent most of his life in the shadows of international intrigue and counted among his legion of friends, victims and accomplices the likes of Rasputin and Churchill. He often is portrayed as a master spy, a man "who never made a mistake" - the living prototype of James Bond.".

"Sidney Reilly's real exploits exceeded anything credited to fictional Bond. Born into a Polish Jewish family as Salomon Rosenblum, he embarked on an amazing, daring and often bewildering career in which he assumed the persona of an Irish-named British gentleman, among many other identities. He was a different person to every man who knew him and every woman who loved him. Sidney Reilly was as much a master criminal as spy, amassing a fortune through the ruthless bartering of influence and information.

He was employed and feared by capitalists and commissars alike. Was he a dedicated anti-communist, the Soviet's first "mole," or simply an unscrupulous con man? Even his end is an enigma: did the Soviets kill him in 1925, or did he live to scheme on for many years to come?"--BOOK JACKET.